[Personal_archives] Institute on Personal Archives Oct. 2010

[Hobbs, Catherine]

Good afternoon,

The following is a draft announcement for the ACA Institute on Personal Archives to be held in the week of October 22nd, 2010.  I hope that this opportunity for discussion and expansion of our theory and practice for personal archives interests you and that you'll consider attending the professional institute.  The final details will follow.  For now, I hope that this description will spark your interest.

Warm Regards,

Catherine Hobbs (SISPA Chair)


ACA Institute on Personal Archives

Oct. 2010
Toronto, Canada


ACA Institutes offer an intense learning experience featuring topics or curriculum at an advanced level. Institutes typically last two to three days and involve preparatory readings and case studies.

The Institute on Personal Archives examines current and emerging issues surrounding the archives of individuals and families.  This professional institute promotes dialogue among archivists about the unique requirements of personal archives, as well as existing theory and new strategies for tackling challenges.

The topics covered in the seminar include: past approaches to personal archives, appraisal and acquisition, arrangement and description, and personal digital archives.  

Session facilitator: Catherine Hobbs  
(SISPA Chair and Literary Archivist [English], Library and Archives Canada)

The Institute will incorporate presentations and discussion with two special guests:  

		Sally Newman (Faculty of Education, Monash University and co-author of The Intimate Archive)  

		Laura Carroll (Salman Rushdie Born Digital Archives Project, Emory University) 

(for bios see below)

Participants will be asked to complete preparatory readings in current thinking about personal archives and to prepare a case study from a finding aid for a personal fonds.  

Archivists and students in the field are encouraged to participate, to debate, and to expand avenues for theory and practice where personal archives are concerned.

Participants will receive a copy of The Intimate Archive: Journeys Through Private Papers by Maryanne Dever, Sally Newman and Ann Vickery (National Library of Australia, 2009).

Details for registration and exact dates to follow.



Sally Newman bio
Dr. Sally Newman is a research fellow in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Melbourne. Sally's research focuses on the history of sexualities and emotions. Specifically  on the ways in which the archive (as a material and conceptual entity), is deployed to provide 'evidence' of desire, sex, love, relationships and/or identity, and how this shapes particular historical narratives in different national contexts. Her book, The Intimate Archive (co-authored with Maryanne Dever and Ann Vickery), was published in 2009 and her articles have appeared in the Journal of the History of Sexuality, Women's History Review and Australian Feminist Studies.

Sally is currently working on the first critical edition of the literary correspondence between poet A. Mary F. Robinson Duclaux (1857-1944)-whose salon in Paris was the meeting place for writers and artists travelling between Britain and Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-and intellectuals Vernon Lee (pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget,1856-1935), and John A. Symonds (1840-1893)--who was co-author of Sexual Inversion (1897) with Havelock Ellis. The letters offer invaluable insight  into emerging discourses of sexuality at this time. The project is funded by an Embassy of France in Australia Humanities Travelling Fellowship with the Australian Academy of the Humanities that will enable Sally to undertake research at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. 

Laura Carroll bio
Laura L. Carroll is a manuscript processing archivist at the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory University, where she most recently served as the lead archivist on the Salman Rushdie born digital archives processing project.  Prior to joining the staff at Emory in January 2008, Laura was the archivist at the American Medical Association in Chicago, Illinois.  She has also worked at the Newberry Library and Loyola University's Women and Leadership Archives.  She holds a master's degree in Public History from Loyola University, in addition to a M.L.I.S. from Dominican University, both located in the Chicago region.  

Catherine Hobbs bio
Catherine Hobbs is the Literary Archivist (English-language) at Library and Archives Canada.  Prior to its merger , she was the Literary Manuscript Archivist (English) at the National Library of Canada.  Catherine is the Chair of the Special Interest Section on Personal Archives (SISPA) within the Association of Canadian Archivists and was a member of the programme committee for the Archives in Canada Conference Series.  She has a particular interest in issues surrounding artistic producers of archives, as well as individuals' understandings of their own documentation.  She has published articles and chapters on literary archives and on personal archives.